HONOLULU — It’s all about the preparation for Chinwe Okorie and it paid off nicely for her Sunday.
Okorie scored 12 of her season-high 18 points in the first half as the No. 7 Mississippi State women’s basketball team pulled away from Hawaii 66-41 on the final day of the Rainbow Wahine Showdown.
The 6-foot-5 senior center shot 8 of 10 from the field and grabbed seven rebounds.
“Even before today we prepared really, really hard for games up front and just being in this championship game was an opportunity for us to see how much we need to grow,” said Okorie, who averaged 12 points and 7.3 rebounds in MSU’s three games in Honolulu.
MSU coach Vic Schaefer praised the play of the Lagos, Nigeria native.
“Chinwe had a monster game, so I was proud of her,” Schaefer said. “She’s come a long way. If you could have seen her three years ago, she couldn’t walk and chew gum at the same time, so she’s really made big strides.”
Victoria Vivians, the tournament’s most outstanding player, scored 10 points for the Bulldogs (7-0). Okorie also was named to the All-Tournament Team.
It was the lowing scoring output of the season for Hawaii, which shot 32 percent from the field and 17 percent (2 of 12) on 3-pointers.
MSU opened the game with an 11-0 run and led by as many as 24 points.
Sarah Toeaina and Briana Harris had 11 points for the Rainbow Wahine (2-5).
MSU added a 17-0 later in the first half to take a 33-19 halftime lead. The big lead allowed Schaefer to use his bench for a second-consecutive game. In an 88-51 victory against San Jose State on Saturday, all 13 players who saw court time scored. All 13 Bulldogs played at least two minutes against Hawaii.
“I wanted to work on building our depth and building some of the kids’ confidence and we were able to do that and obviously that’s going to pay off for us down the line,” Schaefer said.
Hawaii, which has dropped three-straight games, posted a 21-win season and went to its first NCAA tournament since 1998 last year, but it returns only two starters from that team. The Rainbow Wahine started three freshmen, a sophomore, and a junior.
“I’m not worried about the three (losses) in a row,” Hawaii coach Laura Beeman said. “It’s about our overall record, it’s about us getting better, which we did tonight.”
Hawaii took its only lead at 15-13 on Julissa Tago’s layup with 8 minutes, 44 seconds left in the second quarter. However, Dominique Dillingham answered with a 3-pointer from the left wing that ignited a 17-0 run that gave the Bulldogs a 30-15 lead with 2:02 left in the half.
The teams combined for 50 turnovers, 30 of them by the Rainbow Wahine, who had 18 by halftime.
“I was proud of how our first group started out defensively,” Schaefer said. “We had 11 first-half turnovers against the zone, but I am really proud of how we responded defensively. We got some easy baskets off the press. We bother a lot of people with our press and how we get it going in transition.”
MSU will take on Iowa State at 1:30 p.m. Saturday in the SEC/Big 12 Challenge in Ames, Iowa.
Special Reports were included in the story.
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